Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Stereo: A Misunderstanding (Read 19393 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #26
Funny how well it holds up even with audible lossy artifacts.  Well not really all that funny unless you prescribe to the idea that soundstage is so fragile that it is the first thing to be destroyed by the evils of lossy compression.  What's more, the recording is still impressive with cheap ear buds.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #27
...have all been argued and summarily shot-down many times over.

If there was some way to get noobs to wade their way through the dozen or so 10+ page "discussions" on these things so they can see how pointless it is to argue faith on a science-minded forum in the hopes that they don't attempt to repeat them yet again.


I'm not sure how this thread drifted into the various other articles from the site I linked and the false claims in them. I started the thread with the simple question in mind of whether mono sound is better to listen to when you're out of the sweet spot for stereo or have several speakers not aligned properly to create a stereo image. I guess I should have stated it more explicitly. Either way, the thread did go in a direction I had not intended it to.

headphone reproduction and, in particular, binaural recordings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYdIidUIbAs


Thanks for this, I had actually never heard a binaural recording before. Pretty cool indeed. I'm a bit confused with the differences between binaural recording and the 3 channel method used in the "Living Presence" series. Can anyone elaborate on this?

 

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #28
I started the thread with the simple question in mind of whether mono sound is better to listen to when you're out of the sweet spot for stereo or have several speakers not aligned properly to create a stereo image.

Speaking for myself personally, I grew up in a time when everything was mono, and since the first time that I heard music in stereo I have never wanted to go back. As long as sound is coming out of two speakers playing some kind of stereo material, regardless of how poorly the speakers are placed or where I am in the room, it is still a vast improvement over mono.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #29
For a party situation I'd go for mono, but I don't think my guests would much care.

Regarding the off-topic stuff, it's a fallacy to use other writings to impugn the article.  At the same time I think entertaining Devil's Advocacy with one of the typical tired placebophile arguments needed to be shot down as troll-bait.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #30
OT: It's impugn.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #31
I started the thread with the simple question in mind of whether mono sound is better to listen to when you're out of the sweet spot for stereo or have several speakers not aligned properly to create a stereo image.

Speaking for myself personally, I grew up in a time when everything was mono, and since the first time that I heard music in stereo I have never wanted to go back. As long as sound is coming out of two speakers playing some kind of stereo material, regardless of how poorly the speakers are placed or where I am in the room, it is still a vast improvement over mono.


Interesting, could you possibly go into detail as to what specifically makes it better? What if you were using 4 or even 6 speakers? I'm 20, so it's likely that the majority of music I've heard in my life has been in stereo. It hasn't been long since I've become an "audiophile" and started to learn as much as possible about sound technology; and I can say that in the time that I've actually known the difference between mono and stereo, I've been listening almost exclusively in stereo.

However, after reading this article I tried some mono listening at the times I described above and I feel like the music is more complete. With stereo, I feel like when I'm in different positions in the room, some tones are more prevalent than others, at different times. But with mono every speaker is playing the same thing so you hear more of everything. I only tested briefly though so I'll go back and do some more extensive listening. 

For a party situation I'd go for mono, but I don't think my guests would much care.


This. This is more or less the conclusion I was hoping to reach with the thread. Using mono for parties and other similar situations. But yes, I'm sure guests wouldn't even notice, much less care. 

Regarding the off-topic stuff, it's a fallacy to use other writings to impugn the article.  At the same time I think entertaining Devil's Advocacy with one of the typical tired placebophile arguments needed to be shot down as troll-bait.


I understand and would have to agree.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #32
I started the thread with the simple question in mind of whether mono sound is better to listen to when you're out of the sweet spot for stereo or have several speakers not aligned properly to create a stereo image.

Speaking for myself personally, I grew up in a time when everything was mono, and since the first time that I heard music in stereo I have never wanted to go back. As long as sound is coming out of two speakers playing some kind of stereo material, regardless of how poorly the speakers are placed or where I am in the room, it is still a vast improvement over mono.


Interesting, could you possibly go into detail as to what specifically makes it better? What if you were using 4 or even 6 speakers?

I've never experienced more than 2 speakers so I can't make any comparison there. I only know that it seems very unnatural to have an entire symphony orchestra compressed down to a point. Any added directionality is a plus, even if it does not accurately reproduce anything like the original sound stage, not that I would know what the original sound stage sounded like.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #33
However, after reading this article I tried some mono listening at the times I described above and I feel like the music is more complete. With stereo, I feel like when I'm in different positions in the room, some tones are more prevalent than others, at different times. But with mono every speaker is playing the same thing so you hear more of everything. I only tested briefly though so I'll go back and do some more extensive listening.


Please do! I'm about to become 20 as well so I can relate to your experience, however it never even crossed my mind to "go back" to mono, as regardless of the advantages it may have to stereo in some specific situations (like sound perception changing according to your relative position to the speakers if you're walking around the room) the music loses most of its charm IMHO, if not all of it. However, if the original recordings were mono and stereo versions are either not available or were made later without the artist's input (eg. The Beatles' early catalog), then I have no problem with it at all.

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #34
Well it is 30 years old . . .

You're right, I didn't notice that. I'm actually surprised stuff like this existed before the internet came round


It goes back a long way.  I remember back in the 1960's reading old British Wireless World magazines in our local public Library, and the argument that acoustic 78 record players using thorn needles were much "truer to the music" than those newfangled L.P.s with their nasty diamond needles raged on in the letters column for several years.

Ed Seedhouse
VA7SDH

Stereo: A Misunderstanding

Reply #35
I haven't read the entire article, but the fact is that human is equipped with "imagination", including the one that can place us into imaginary halls/places (so we are slightly more interesting than a dumb mic/speaker) invalidates the article imho, basically it is a freaking bs (At least the first part that I read).

Quote
In order to know if a system's reproduction of spatial relationships is accurate, one would have to know if the reproduction matches those relationships exactly as they were at the microphones during the recording. Since heads are differently shaped and no one can be in exactly the same place as the microphones, the spatial effects of direction, depth, etc., will be different for each person in the room.


Yeah, my head is banana shaped, now what?
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung